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krirebr · 2 months ago

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Luck Be a Lady

Pairing: soft!dark Curtis Everett x female reader

Word Count: ~10.1k

Summary: Desperate for money, you accept a job as a cocktail waitress at an underground casino. You think you know what you're doing, but when you meet Curtis, will you realize you're in over your head?

Warnings: Mob AU, violence, allusions to murder, explicit language, dubcon touching, noncon touching (not Curtis), willfully oblivious reader, SMUT - facefucking, dirty talk, light d/s dynamics, praise kink, other explicit sexual content. This is definitely on the darker end of the soft!dark spectrum, so proceed with caution! All of my work is 18+ - Minors DNI

Dividers by @thecutestgrotto

Masterlist

A/N: And here it finally is! This is my first real attempt at soft!dark. I hope I did it right! 😂

This was inspired by two things: 1) me going to a rep screening of Goodfellas and spending the entire time wondering why I hadn't done a mob au yet and 2) @bigtreefest saying "enforcer!Curtis Everett and mob boss!Andy Barber" in my general direction. Thanks for the inspo, friend!!

And big thanks as always to @paperweight91 who not only came up with Curtis's name for reader but also offered heaps of encouragement and was a great sounding board. And thanks to @stargazingfangirl18 for helping me figure out how exactly we'd get to the smut. Thanks Siri!

Any comment, reblog, or ask to let me know what you think will be greatly appreciated. Please come scream at me about this! 😄 As always, thank you so much for reading! 💜

You fruitlessly tug down your very short skirt as Holly talks at you. You’re both standing in the corner of the bar’s basement waiting for the night to start in earnest—your first night.

“Lloyd’s not so bad,” she says of your boss, the man who runs this little underground gambling ring. “You’ll have to split your tips with him at the end of the night, but he doesn’t take that much, and you’ll make enough that you won’t really notice. As long as you do that, he’ll mostly keep his hands to himself.”

You nod along, glancing at the mustachioed man conferring with the bouncer at the door. The interview process for this job had boiled down to a thorough once-over that’d made you feel naked in your jeans and t-shirt and a “You’re not too stupid to take a drink order, are you?” and then you had the job.

Holly had vouched for you. Neighbors for almost half a year, she’d come home early one morning last week and witnessed you trying to convince the landlord that you were good for your past-due rent. She’d taken you for coffee and told you she might be able to help if you were good at keeping your head down and mouth shut. And now you were here.

“The customers, on the other hand,” she continues, smacking her gum, “you’ll have to let them touch, at least a little bit. Within reason, you know? But if anything gets out of hand, you can just tell Jake at the door and he’ll take care of it.”

“Within reason?” you ask, voice shaking, just the littlest bit, as the pit that started forming in your stomach when you agreed to this grows a little more.

The look she gives you verges on exasperated. “Well, you want to make money, don’t you?”

Yes, you do. Very much so. It’s a need, not a want. So you nod and try to listen as she keeps giving you the rundown.

Before you’re ready, the first patrons start trickling in and then you’re off to the races. It’s not too bad. No one’s orders are too complicated, mostly just bottles of beer and glasses of straight whiskey. The bartender, Colin, is friendly enough, although you learn that he’s another person you’ll need to split your tips with.

As for the touching, there are hands on your hips, pats to your ass. But you’re rewarded with folded-up bills held up between fingers or tucked into the strap of your top. Or, twice, slid behind the waistband of your skirt. Once you realize that the majority of these bills aren’t ones or fives, but twenties, you care about the touching that comes with them much less. Plus, you’re too busy to really think about it that hard.

You can’t believe how busy it is for a random Tuesday night, multiple games of poker, craps, and who knows what else all going at once. But when you mention that to Holly, she just laughs and shakes her head. “This is nothing,” she says. “On the weekends there’ll be three more of us and another one of Jake. Things get wild.”

You don’t have time to decide whether that makes you nervous or excited before someone is signaling for your attention again. You manage to suppress your grimace when he slides his arm around your waist to tell you what he needs from the bar. You’re rewarded for your troubles by a wad of twenties. You aren’t sure who these men are to tip so freely, but you know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It’s an hour or two later that Lloyd calls you over to where he’s speaking to a large, impossibly broad man, dressed in a soft-looking henley under a leather jacket with dark jeans. There’s dark ink all over his hands that disappears up his sleeves and reappears on his neck in intricate lines. He’s got close-cropped hair and a full beard that’s neatly trimmed. His deep blue eyes drill into you right away and you do your best not to shiver.

“Got a new girl tonight, Everett. Still learning the ropes, but she’ll take good care of you, won’t you, Cupcake?”

“Yes, of course,” you say, before Lloyd wanders off to check on one of the poker games.

The man, Everett, lets his eyes rove over you. “Cupcake, huh?” His voice is deep, gritty, but there's something there that's much gentler than you expected.

You give him what you hope is a coy smile. “Sure. If you want.” Lloyd was treating him like he's important. You hope important means deep pockets.

He hits you with a penetrative stare, so strong you almost have to take a step back. “No,” he finally says. “I don't think so. I'll find something more fitting.” Then he turns and starts to walk away, before calling over his shoulder. “I'm gonna get dealt in. Bring me a whiskey once I'm settled.”

You watch him go for just a moment, and then head to the bar, asking for a whiskey.

“This for Everett?” the bartender, Colin, asks. When you nod, he grabs a fancy bottle off the top shelf. “This is all he drinks. And he doesn't pay for it, alright? Don't ever think about giving him a bill.”

You look back at the man in question, seriously looking at the cards he’s just been dealt. Who is he???

You collect his whiskey and move back to him. As you set it down, he turns to you. “How about this?” he asks as he holds up a crisply folded hundred-dollar bill between two fingers. Your eyes widen at the money. All you’ve done is bring him one straight pour. “There’s another one of these in it for you if you make sure I never see the bottom of this glass tonight. Sound good?” And then he folds the bill one more time in his thick fingers, before sliding it under the low-cut neckline of your blouse. Your skin tingles where he brushes against it.

“Yeah, you got it,” you just breathe out, a little shocked you’re able to form words. He gives you a smug smile that you can only describe as shark-like before turning back to his cards, and you understand it as the dismissal that it is.

You move around the room, collecting empties, getting refills, trying to goodnaturedly accept unsolicited touches. The whole time you feel eyes on you, but whenever you glance Everett’s way, he’s focused on his poker game.

Eventually, a down moment finds you catching your breath against the wall. The moment Holly sees you standing still, she’s quickly making her way to you. “You need to be more careful around Curtis,” she hisses, lowly.

You look at her, confused. “Curtis?” Jake’s at the door. Colin’s behind the bar. You don’t know a Curtis.

“Curtis Everett!” You glance at the man at the poker table. He’s running a poker chip across his knuckles mindlessly. Then he looks up and you briefly make eye contact before you quickly look away. Holly is staring at you and she looks worried. But the name still doesn’t mean anything to you, so you shake your head and shrug. She groans as quietly as she can. “He’s Barber’s top enforcer!”

This whole conversation feels so out of the blue that it takes you a minute to catch up. Barber. Andrew Barber. The most feared mob boss in the city. Probably the state. Maybe even more. Ruthless and exacting was how the papers described him. He’d been the subject of multiple stings and taskforces and whathaveyou but nothing ever stuck. “He works for Andrew Barber?” you ask, shocked and a little appalled.

Holly stares at you in a way that you can only describe as dumbfounded. It takes her a few moments to find her words, then, “Bitch, you work for Andrew Barber!”

Everything stops. “What?” you gasp.

“Oh my god,” Holly groans. “This was such a mistake. It’s an underground card game in his city! Who did you think was running things?”

“I– I don’t know,” you stutter, stupidly. The god’s honest truth is that you’d never really stopped to think about it. You’d been staring down an eviction, struggling to afford groceries. Unable to make ends meet no matter what you did. When Holly told you about this job, all you saw were dollar signs. You didn't think about anything further. Of course, you’d known these games were illegal, but it seemed so minor in the grand scheme of things. You hadn’t connected it to anything bigger because you just hadn’t wanted to.

But now– Now that you know the truth, what are you going to do? You know what you should do. You should walk out the door right now. You should find some other legitimate way to pay your bills. It’ll be safer. It’ll be better. It’ll be so much harder.

As you bite your lip, trying to process all of this information, Holly continues. “Listen,” she says, “still get him drinks, be friendly, whatever you need to do. But keep your distance however you can. Don't encourage him. He's just– He's really dangerous. They don't call him Barber’s attack dog for nothing, ok?”

“Yeah,” you say. You start to look back in Curtis’s direction but stop yourself. You think about the hundred you already have and the one promised to you at the end of the night. You think of how empty your pantry is. But then you see the genuine fear in Holly's eyes. You let out a shaky breath. “Yeah. I got it. Thanks.”

“He doesn't even come in here that often. I'm surprised to see him tonight, so I'm sure it’ll be fine,” she says, but you can tell she’s nervous.

You nod, absently, finally letting yourself glance over at him. His drink is getting close to the bottom. “Shit,” you mumble. “I gotta get him his refill.”

“Do you want me to do it?” Holly asks.

You should let her do it. You absolutely should. But you just can’t give up on that tip. You shake your head. “No, I’ll be fine. But thanks.”

You head back to the bar and grab Curtis’s top-shelf whiskey of choice from Colin, then make your way to his table. You set it down next to him, hoping to move away without him even noticing, he’s so engrossed in the game. But as you take a step back, his hand shoots out to grab your wrist. He holds it tightly until you meet his eyes. “Good girl,” he murmurs, and you can’t help the sharp intake of breath or the way you feel his words in your knees. He strokes his thumb down the inside of your wrist, then abruptly lets go, pushing his chips to the middle of the table. You step away, gathering yourself as subtly as you can, and get back to work.

The rest of the night goes quickly. The crowd gets a little rowdier as they drink more, but you find that it’s nothing you can’t handle. The reality of who these people are, what they’re connected to, never leaves your mind. But really, they’re not so bad. None of this feels so bad at all. And soon, people start heading out. You’re beginning to clean up, when a recognizable voice rings out, “Bambi!” You turn and lock eyes with Curtis. He crooks two fingers at you and you quickly make your way over to him.

“Bambi?” you ask.

He grins at you and it feels more than a little predatory. You’ll never admit how much you like it. You try to keep Holly’s warning at the forefront of your mind. “Wide eyes and just getting your legs under you,” he says. You instinctively duck your head at that, which earns a dark chuckle. “Here,” he continues, as he pulls a genuine, fat money clip out of his back pocket. You’ve never seen something like it in real life before. He peels off two bills and holds them out to you. “This is what good girls get,” he says, a low rumble in his voice.

You swallow as you take them from him. Two hundred dollars. Twice what you were expecting. “Thank you,” you say quietly.

He shakes his head. “You earned it.” Then, after one last long look at you, he turns around and leaves.

You stand and stare after him. You don’t doubt anything Holly said, but three hundred dollars, just for bringing him drinks. He doesn’t seem that bad, not really. A little intense maybe, but there’s some sort of interest there, and it can’t be that bad to encourage it, just a little if it earns you these sorts of tips, can it??

Any hesitance you have about this entire endeavor completely disappears as you count your money at the end of the night.

Your first week flies by. You're starting to get the hang of the job. You get along with your coworkers. You get to know the regulars. You like it. Even Lloyd isn’t so bad as long as you give him his cut at the end of every night.

And you’re making so much money.

In your downtime, you pay your landlord what you owe him. You go grocery shopping without scouring for coupons first or calculating exactly what you can afford beforehand. You make a Pinterest board of what you want your apartment to look like now that you might actually be able to buy things to fill it. For the very first time, you’re thinking about things you actually want, not just desperately trying to figure out how you’ll pay your bills. You’ve never felt this calm, this relaxed, this free before. It’s an incredible feeling.

And Curtis. Despite Holly’s reassurances that you wouldn’t see him much, he seems to be there whenever you are, trying to capitalize on his winning streak at the poker tables, you assume. His tips are still insanely generous. You don’t think he carries anything less than hundred dollar bills.

And there’s just something about him. The way he looks at you. The way he touches you. It’s not like the other men here. His touch is like fire, warming from the inside. There’ve been times when his hand on your hip has almost made your knees buckle. That doesn’t happen with anyone else here.

But you’re being smart and you’re being safe. You are. You’re going to set a savings goal, you think. And once you hit that number, you’ll be out of here, onto something more legitimate. And until then, you’ll just keep your head down and mouth shut, like Holly said. You haven’t even really seen anything. It’s a good plan. It’ll be fine.

She’s right that the weekends are wilder. Even with three additional girls working the room, you’re kept running. You do your best to keep an eye on Curtis’s drinks, but it’s much harder than on weeknights. And you aren’t really able to pause when you drop them off. It’s one of these times, as you’re pulling away from the table as soon as you’ve set his glass down, that you’re stopped short by his hand on you. He pulls you back in by the wrist and says, “They’re just running you ragged tonight, huh, Bambi?”

You smile and shrug. “It’s busy.”

He holds out a bill and you try not to smile even wider as he slips it into the waistband of your skirt. “For all your hard work.”

You bat your lashes a little. “You spoil me.”

“I like spoiling you,” he says, lowly.

“You’re too sweet,” you say softly. Then, pulling your arm away with a wink, you add, “Gotta run,” and you’re onto the next table.

You’re getting good at this, figuring out what level of harmless flirting is just enough to keep the money flowing. And you’re having fun. You’d never expected that.

Holly and two of the other girls, Jane and Kristi, are congregated at the end of the bar, waiting for drinks, when you join them. They’re all watching you warily. “So, uh,” Jane starts quietly, “you seem to be getting pretty cozy with Curtis.”

Before you can respond, Holly scoffs behind her. “I’ve tried to warn her but she won’t fucking listen.”

You roll your eyes. You’re tired of hearing this. “I seriously don’t get what the big deal is. He’s nice and he tips well. It’s harmless!”

Kristi just gapes at you. “He’s nice?!”

Holly slams the drinks she was waiting for onto her tray. “Whatever,” she grumbles. “It’s her fucking funeral.”

You shake your head as you watch her go. It’s fine. You can take care of yourself.

The rest of the night goes by in a blur. You don’t get much of a chance to talk to Curtis, but you feel his eyes on you before he disappears a little before closing.

At the end of the night, once you’ve helped clean up, you cash out with Colin and Jake and then go to find Lloyd in his office. You think it’s kind of ridiculous that you’re basically paying him to work there, but it is what it is. And Holly was right, you’re making so much that you barely even notice.

Lloyd is sitting at his desk, looking a little more disheveled than you’re used to. He startles at your approach, which is also new.

“Oh, hey,” he says, with slightly rounded eyes. “What can I do for you?”

You look at him, a little confused. “Just here with your cut,” you say as you hold out his money.

His hands immediately fly up to his chest, palms out. “No, no,” he says. “You made that fair and square. You just– you keep what you make from now on, Cupcake. Sound good?”

You swallow and nod, preparing yourself for whatever other price you’ll have to pay for keeping your job, mentally calculating what you’re willing to do. But Lloyd doesn’t do anything, doesn’t make any move to get closer to you. Just stays there at his desk, turning back to his work. “You have a good night,” he says, clearly dismissing you.

You leave confused, but richer, telling yourself not to question it too hard.

Things go so smoothly for a few weeks that you’re a little shocked when the bubble bursts.

It’s a relatively quiet weeknight. There are a few games going, but nothing compared to the weekend. The pace of the night feels leisurely. It’s nice.

It’s maybe the first night you haven’t seen Curtis there. It feels weird. He’s become such a part of this place for you. A fixture, like the bar or the carpet. Just one of the elements that make it what it is. But it’s fine. Of course, he doesn’t come every night. He probably has a whole life outside of this. He must’ve gotten bored of playing cards. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

You’re passing the time talking to one of the regulars at the bar, Vinny. He’s in his fifties, you think, with gray hair and laugh lines. He’d gone bust at the poker table (or maybe it was craps tonight) earlier and then had moved to the bar to drink away his sorrows and bad luck. That was how his nights tended to go.

He’s sitting on a barstool, his arm around your waist where you stand next to him. He’s a little close for comfort, but he’s always just been a friendly guy, so you’re alright. Which is why you’re so surprised when, in the middle of a story about the good old days of the Copa Cabana, his other hand suddenly finds its way between your thighs. You freeze. For just a second. Then you force out a laugh and try to push his hand away. “Bad boy,” you try to tease, your voice shaking. His hand will not move. What is happening? “Come on, let’s keep our hands to ourselves.”

Instead of doing what you’ve asked, his thumb briefly brushes the inside of your leg and then his whole hand begins moving higher. You stop breathing. You push again but he won’t budge.

“You’re such a pretty doll, aren’tcha?” he says.

Tears start to gather in your eyes. You look around wildly to see if anyone’s noticing what’s happening. Colin’s busy making drinks. Jake and Lloyd are talking by the door. Everyone else is engrossed in their own business. “Vinnie, stop, please,” you whisper. You don’t know why you can’t get your voice to work, can’t get your body to move.

“Come on,” he cajoles, “I’m being nice, aren’t I?”

Then his thumb brushes against your panties and your entire body jolts into action. You wrench your leg out of his grasp and take several steps away from him. Your whole body is shaking now. “I gotta–” you start, trying to keep your tone casual and failing miserably. “I gotta get back to work, Vinny.” Then you grab your tray off the bartop and walk away as fast as you can.

You don’t really have a destination in mind. You pick up a few empties as you wander between tables. You can feel his eyes on you, following you. You try to take a deep breath, calm yourself down. It isn’t very helpful. You look up to see Jake by himself now. You make your way over to him, Holly’s words on your first night in your ears. That was out of hand, wasn’t it?

He looks up as you approach. His big golden retriever smile on his face. “Hey, what’s up?” Then he actually takes you in and his smile drops. “What happened?”

“Um, Vinny, he, uh–” You feel a few tears fall down your cheeks and you just shake your head.

Jake’s face darkens. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, uh, he– he just–” You shake your head again. “No, he didn’t hurt me.”

Jake doesn’t say anything for a moment, just looks at you. There’s something about the way he does it that makes you think he understands everything you just can’t say. He nods once. “Alright. I’ll take care of it. You go take your time in the back. Do what you need to do. He’ll be gone by the time you’re done.”

You let out a shaky breath. “Okay, thank you,” you say so quietly. Then you get yourself to the back room as quickly as you can.

It’s really more of a hallway than a room, small and narrow. All of the storage space for the building is in the legitimate bar upstairs. But there’s enough room for you to crouch down, your knees pulled up tight to your chin. You bury your face in your thighs and let the tears you’ve been holding in finally fall. You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re fine.

You don’t know how long you’ve spent trying to calm yourself down when a large shadow suddenly looms over you. It takes you a moment to gather your strength to find out who it is. You hope it’s Jake telling you Vinny’s gone. You’re afraid it might be Lloyd, here to tell you to get back to work. There’s a slowly building terror that it might be Vinny himself.

After a deep breath, you look up to find Curtis staring down at you, concern on his face and fiery anger in his eyes. “What happened?” he growls.

You shake your head and turn away. He crouches down in front of you. “Are you alright?”

A humorless, uncontrolled laugh escapes you. Once you finally stop, you ignore his question and ask your own, “Why are you here?”

It takes him a very long time to answer. He just looks at you seriously for several moments. Then, finally, “Jake called me.” While you try to figure out why on earth Jake would do that, he continues, “I'm sorry I wasn’t already here.”

“Why?” you blurt out without thinking.

He looks away without saying anything. You both just sit in the silence for a few moments. Then, you try to change tactics. “Where were you?” you ask out of morbid curiosity. You can't imagine what his life is like outside of here.

“Working,” he says curtly. He plays with a ring on his middle finger and the movement draws your eyes to his hands, specifically his knuckles. They're scraped and caked with dried blood.

You swallow and you catch how his eyes track the movement. His eyes are always on you. He catches everything.

“Someone touched you?”

“Lots of people touch me,” you say, flatly. “It's part of the job. You touch me.”

His eyes narrow at that. “But this was different.” It isn’t a question.

You look down at your hands in your lap and don't say anything.

“Tell me who it was.”

“No,” you say instinctively, something about the moment feeling incredibly dangerous.

He huffs in frustration. “Are you trying to protect him?”

“No!” you say, sharply. “I’m protecting myself.”

“You don’t have to do that. Not from me. Not ever.”

You don’t know how to tell him that every atom in you knows that that isn’t true. You can’t explain it, and it wasn’t until the moment he joined you in this little closet, but you’d swear that he’s a danger to you. You just can't articulate how, but you feel it in your bones. And still, here you stay.

At your silence, he grits out, “If you don’t tell me who it was, Jake will.”

Jake probably already has, that’s what you’ve figured. “Great,” you say. “Then you don’t need me to say it.”

“Bambi,” he lets out in an exasperated growl. “I'm trying to help you.”

You just look at him and then figure you may as well ask the main question that's on your mind. “Why did Jake call you?”

He ignores you and stands up. “Come on,” he says and extends his hand, “I'm taking you home.”

You just blink up at him. “My shift isn't over.”

He shakes his hand at you impatiently. “It is now. Come on.”

You shake your head. “Curtis, this is my job. I can't just– Lloyd will–”

“I'll take care of Lloyd. Let’s go.”

You think about going home. About sitting alone in your small apartment. At least here you'll have something to do, things to focus on, to keep you busy. At home, there'll be nothing to think about other than that hand between your legs and– “No,” you say as firmly as you can manage. “I'm staying here. I'm finishing the night.”

His jaw ticks but he doesn’t say anything, just tries to stare you down. You stare right back. You will not concede this.

Finally, he exhales through his nostrils, then growls out an unhappy “Fine. But I'll–” He's interrupted by his phone ringing in his pocket. He takes it out and glances at the caller ID and sighs. “I have to take this.” He steps away as much as he can in the tiny area and answers with a curt “Everett.” There's a slight pause. “Yeah, I took care of it.” Another pause that has him glancing at you. “No, something else came up.”

You don't wait to hear the rest of the conversation. You take the opportunity to go back to the main room and get back to work.

You don't see Curtis again that night. You don't spare much thought to where he might've gone. You're too focused on getting through the remainder of your shift. When it's done, Jake insists on seeing you home. You don't ask why. You already know who's behind it.

The next few days are fine. You try to put what happened behind you, doing your best to ignore it. But that becomes impossible when three days after the incident you watch Vinny walk in. You can’t help the little burst of panic you feel as you warily watch him sit down at his usual table and get dealt in.

As subtly as you can, you make your way over to Jake. You don’t even say anything before he’s looking at you, chagrined. “I know,” he says. “I’m sorry, but I had to let him in. I promise it’s all going to be taken care of. It’s just– You can ignore him tonight, ok? Just trust me. You don’t need to worry about him. I promise.”

“Ok,” you say reluctantly, trying to resist looking back at Vinny. “I just– I didn’t think I’d have to see him again.”

“I really think that after tonight you won’t,” he says sincerely.

You don’t really understand what that means, but you nod anyway. “Ok,” you say. “I, uh, I should get back to work then.”

He just nods after you, looking a little concerned and a little sad. But the room is filling up, so you don’t have time to delve into it.

Sometime later, as you’re taking a brief moment to idle by the bar, a strange hush descends over the room. You’re facing away from the door, away from the rest of the room, but you see Colin take in whatever it is that’s caused this. His face pales and he lets out a quiet, urgent, “Shit.”

You turn around to see what on earth could be going on and you immediately freeze. Curtis is here. But that’s not what’s garnering all of this attention. Well, not all. Because he’s not alone, there’s a man with him. A little shorter, not quite as broad. But you’d be able to feel the power radiating off of him, even if you didn’t recognize him. Soft dark hair, thick beard, an immaculately tailored suit. You’ve seen him in the papers, on the news, but in real life, he’s even more intimidating. Andrew Barber.

Barber leans in close to say something to Curtis, who nods, eyes scanning the room until they land on you. Your breath catches, but luckily Colin calls your name behind you and you have an excuse to turn around. He places two glasses of dark liquor on the bar. “Everett,” he says, gesturing to one, then “Barber,” while waving his hand over the other. “Got it?” You nod and place them on your tray. They’re identical to your eyes except for the fact that Barber's has a muddled black cherry at the bottom of the glass.

You carefully bring them over, trying to force yourself to breathe. Curtis intercepts you and grabs the drinks when you're a few steps away. “Thank you, Bambi,” he says, lowly.

Barber perks up. “This is Bambi? Really?” He extends a hand and you have no choice but to take it. “Andy Barber,” he says with a disarming smile. “It's a pleasure to meet you finally.”

His handshake is firm, demanding. He is terrifying in his friendliness. And he knows who you are. Has known, for who knows how long. You glance at Curtis, but he's just calmly drinking his whiskey. You don't know what to say, what are you supposed to say?? So after too long a pause, you practically whisper, “Thank you, Mr. Barber.”

He chuckles lightly as he takes back his hand. To Curtis, he says, “You're right, Bambi does suit her.” Then he turns back to you and adds, “Andy, please.”

“O– Okay, Andy,” you say, with what you desperately hope is a benign smile. You look over at Curtis, you’re not entirely sure why, but out of these two dangerous options, he, at least, is familiar. “I should get back to work.”

Curtis is staring at you, but it’s Andy who answers. “Mmm, and we have a game to join, don’t we?” Curtis nods but still doesn’t break his gaze. Andy smirks, “No rest for the wicked.”

You have no idea what to do with that sentiment, so you take the opportunity and get out of there. You walk through the tables, checking to see if anyone needs anything, but the mob boss’s physical presence seems to have ground all action to a halt. The room is collectively holding its breath.

You go back to the bar for want of anything else to do. Colin is standing ramrod straight, coiled in case he needs to spring into action. Lloyd is sitting down at the end of the bar, drumming his fingers, eyes moving all around the room. You settle next to Holly, who looks just as scared as she did that first night when she was trying to warn you off of Curtis. “Is this,” you start to ask, your voice shaking. “Is this normal? Does he come here a lot?”

“No, never” she shakes her head. “Why would he come here? He has real clubs and restaurants. He doesn’t need to hang out in a shit hole like this.” She shakes her head again. “He’d only come here for a reason.”

You turn your head back to the room and find that Andy and Curtis have settled at Vinny’s table, joining his game across from him. Your heart lands in your throat. That can’t– No. You’re just some cocktail waitress. Even with Curtis’s obvious interest in you, you aren’t important enough to bring the most powerful man in the city here. You’re nothing. He must have other reasons.

The room is quiet enough to hear a pin drop as everyone waits for something to happen, which is why when Andy does start speaking, you don’t have to strain your ears to pick up every word.

He looks at his cards carefully, then over at Vinny. “You know, Vinny, you’re a hard man to track down.” His voice is so calm, it sends a chill up your spine. “You don’t go home, we can’t find you at work. I was starting to get worried.” He runs a few chips through his fingers before tossing them into the center of the felt. “That’s why, when I heard you were showing up here, I sent my best man to investigate,” he nods towards Curtis, “just to make sure you were ok.”

You don’t have a great view of Vinny from where you’re standing, but you can see how stiff he is, how silent. But he still calls when it’s his turn.

“You can imagine my relief when I found out you were alright. Except,” he raises again, a few more chips into the pot, “you’re losing a lot of money, aren’t you? Now, this upsets me. Not because you’re losing your own money. But because it’s mine, isn’t it?”

Vinny finally tries to pipe up. “Andy, hold on. I can ex–”

“You owe me $150,000, Vinny. With interest, that total’s climbing every day. And yet, you sit here and you just keep losing, don’t you? At my own game. What would you do if you won, huh? Would you really try paying me back with my own money? I thought maybe you’d at least have the smarts to cross the border and try this at one of Roger’s casinos. Huh? Paying me back with my enemy’s money, at least that I could respect. But no, it’s only me you think is stupid enough to fall for your bullshit. So now I’m here to give you the chance to fucking do it to my face.” With that, he violently pushes all of his chips into the center of the table.

Everyone else has folded. It’s just Barber and Vinny now. You’re not sure Curtis even actually played. He’s just staring Vinny down, although occasionally his eyes will flick up and meet yours. You hate feeling like you’re a part of this, but you don’t know what else to do besides watch it play out.

Vinny is just spluttering, while Andy calmly looks on. It’s all the expected, cliche stuff you’ve seen in gangster movies. He’s got the money, he swears. He just needs a little more time. Andy has to know he’s good for it! You want to roll your eyes right along with Andy.

“Call, Vinny,” Andy cuts him off, sternly. “That’s $150,000 I just put in the pot. Call. And if you win, we’re even. Your debt’s erased. But if you lose, well then that’s $300,000 you’ll owe me. And you know I won’t be able to tolerate that. So call. And let’s find out where we stand.”

You can’t see what Vinny’s doing, but you can imagine the way his fingers must be hovering over his chips, his eyes moving down to his cards to check, one more time, if they’re as good or bad as he remembers. You know there’s no way out for him either way. He’ll have to call. He’s just delaying the inevitable.

You feel like you can't breathe as you wait for him to just finally do it, but Andy cuts in again. “The thing I can't understand, Vinny, is why you kept coming here after Curtis showed up. Either you're very stupid or really fucking greedy.” He looks at Vinny carefully. “Maybe a little of both. I hear you've been touching something that doesn't belong to you.”

You gasp. No one notices, but you do. He can't be talking about you. He can't. He can't.

Vinny seems even more confused than you. “What are you talking about? I haven't touched anything!”

Andy continues to ignore him. “So you're stupid and greedy. That's why you aren't afraid of him like you should be. They call him my attack dog, did you know? Have you heard that? Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you think he’s some puppy that follows me around. You’d be stupid to underestimate him, underestimate me. But maybe you only do that because you've never seen my dog off his leash.”

Curtis springs into action, lunging across the table to grab Vinny by the collar, and then slams his head into the felt. Before there’s even time to react, he’s stood and he's picking Vinny back up and hurling him onto the floor. Curtis comes around the table to stalk after him and the look on his face has you gasping for breath. You've never seen Curtis like this. There's a glint in his eye that might be the scariest thing you've ever seen. Who is this man? What is he capable of?

Vinny is dazedly trying to crawl away, but Curtis catches him easily. He grabs Vinny’s collar and hauls him back up, delivering two punches to his face in quick succession. The sound it makes. There's no other sound in the whole room. No one's saying anything, no one's doing anything. Everyone's just watching, hypnotized. You turn away, your stomach churning. Your eyes catch on Andy, sitting back in his chair, placidly drinking the whiskey you brought him, completely relaxed, like he's watching anything else. You can't look at him either.

The room is completely silent except for the crunching of bones, Vinny’s whimpers, and Curtis’s grunts. You look up again to be startled by eye contact with Curtis. His eyes are wild, unhinged. Feral. But there's something else in it, like all of this is for you. That all of you are there, everything is happening, because Vinny dared to touch you. It takes your breath away. It’s mesmerizing.

Andy finally stands and strides over to where Curtis is holding Vinny up in the middle of the room. He looks down at Vinny, then spits in his face. “I'm tired of trying to draw blood from a stone,” he says. Then he turns to Curtis and finishes, “Get rid of him.”

Curtis gives you one last long look, his face unreadable. You feel it in your knees. Then he drags Vinny out, leaving a bloody trail behind him.

The moment they're gone, it's like the entire room can breathe again. “Lloyd,” Andy calls out. “How ‘bout a round for everyone? On me.”

Lloyd nods to Colin who hurriedly starts pouring drinks. And you, so grateful for something to do, instead of just standing there, shaking, start loading the glasses on your tray.

As you begin to pass them out, Andy of all people, pulls you aside. “Bambi,” he says quietly, “I hope you know now, we take care of our own.”

You gaze at him, shocked. It feels like a comfort and a threat. But why? It's not so much the implication that this all had something to do with you, but you can't for the life of you imagine what you've done to get yourself to a place where Andy Barber might consider you his, however distantly. It can't just be that you work here. You can't picture him doing something similar for Holly or Colin. Once again, this all feels so incredibly dangerous.

While you're struggling to come up with anything to say to that, he grabs a drink off your tray and downs it quickly. Then, with a wink, he turns and leaves. You’re left staring after him until someone calls after you and you're scrambling to pass out drinks again.

The night ends quickly. No one seems eager to stay and drink and play after everything that's happened. Not when there's still blood on the floor.

You do what you can to help clean up, but when you stare at the stain helplessly, Lloyd tells you not to worry about it. He's got a guy.

Colin walks out with you so you aren’t in the parking lot alone. You're grateful. You're still so shaken. As you approach your car, your beater that you still don’t quite have the money to replace, you see someone leaning against it. You stop short, looking to Colin for help, but he just keeps walking to his own car, his head down. That’s when you know it’s Curtis.

You take a deep breath and then force yourself to keep walking towards him. You can't begin to parse how you feel to see him now. Your keys are ready in your hand like you might just get in and drive off without speaking to him. You know you won’t.

When you reach him, his voice is rough as he asks, “Are you ok?” He’s cleaned up. There’s no more blood on his hands, his clothes have been straightened.

You open your mouth to answer, even though you have no idea, so instead what comes out is “Did you kill him?”

“Did you want me to?” is his immediate reply.

It stops you in your tracks as all sorts of feelings come bubbling up, ones you can not, will not examine. This is about his propensity for violence, how terrifying he became, not– No. “Did you?” you insist.

He looks at you carefully then shakes his head. “I don't think you actually want me to answer that.”

“But you've killed before?” You can't stop yourself from pressing, from pushing. You don’t know why.

He just sort of smiles, gently almost, in a way that is deeply unsettling. “You need to stop asking questions you aren’t ready for me to answer, Bambi.” And it’s the way he says the nickname, like you really are that babe in the woods, just born with no knowledge of the world around you, that has your hackles rising.

“Andy called you his dog,” you say, like he should be offended.

To your surprise, he laughs, his head thrown back. Then he takes a step closer to you, and you take the opportunity to sneak in behind him, get to your car. You realize your mistake immediately when he turns back around and cages you in, your back pressed against the driver’s side door. “Everyone calls me his dog. Because he’s the civilized man in the designer suit, and I’m the animal just begging for a reason to slip my leash.”

Your heart pounds wildly in your chest. You should get into your car. You should drive away as fast as you can. You should never come back. But you don’t. “You did it for him,” you say, mustering all the strength into your voice that you can. “You didn’t do it for me.”

He leans over you, the space between you shrinking rapidly. “Yeah, he asked me to do it,” he nods. “But if he hadn’t, I still would have done it. For you.”

You try to shake your head, to tell him that that can’t be true, even as a wild, loud part of you starts to rise up and claw out of your chest. You try to tamp it down, deny it, but before you can, Curtis is leaning in further, his whole body pressing against you, and then he covers your lips with his.

There’s a heat that comes up out of him that fills you, the instant his skin touches yours. His hands are on you, your neck, your hip. You can’t keep track, can only say that his hands are there, everywhere, that his body touches all of yours, that his lips and his tongue are demanding, unrelenting. You are burning up from the inside.

Too soon, but ages later, he pulls away. His eyes are on fire as he looks at you. Then he tears his gaze away, and hits the roof of your decrepit car twice, looking at it disdainfully. “You get home safe,” he says, then steps back to allow you the space you need to get into your car.

You do what he wants you to do. You get in your car, sit in the driver’s seat, and then stare blankly out the windshield. You’ve never felt so out of control in your life. How did this happen? You were flirting for tips, that was all! You encouraged it for money, that was it, and now– You press your thighs together, trying not to pant. You will not be unmoored.

A slight movement in your periphery makes you notice that Curtis is still standing just to the side of your car, watching you. You turn your keys in the ignition and shift into drive.

It doesn’t mean anything it doesn’t mean anything it doesn’t mean anything, you chant to yourself all the way home.

It’s your next shift back, and everything seems to have changed. You don’t understand it. You keep doing laps of the room, keep sidling up to regulars you were so friendly with just a few nights ago, but now, they won’t even look at you, let alone touch you. No one’s ordering anything.

Or at least, they aren’t ordering from you.

Holly has been running around nonstop all night, basically having to take care of the entire room by herself. You watch man after man after man slip her little bundles of money.

You want to scream. What the fuck happened? What did you do? What are you going to do?

You go to stand by the bar to wait for something you can do. Colin gives you a brief nod of acknowledgment but that’s it. He’s been cold, too. No. Not cold, distant. You don’t understand what’s changed.

You take a deep breath. It’s one weird night. Things will be better tomorrow.

Things don’t get better. The next night is the same. You’re starting to panic. This job was supposed to be your lifeline. Without it, without the money you were making, you’re not sure how you’ll survive.

Curtis comes in after a couple of hours of nothing. You could cry you’re so happy to see him. But terrified too. If he gives you the cold shoulder, this job really is over. But you have no idea how he’s going to act, not after what happened last time. You’re not sure how you’re going to act either. You can still feel his lips on yours.

You bring him his whiskey immediately and he greets you with an arm around your waist, pulling you in. “Hey Bambi,” he says quietly. Then he gets a good look at you. “What’s wrong?”

You look at him carefully, not sure what to confide. You aren’t even sure what the problem is. You shake your head. “Not my best night,” you say with a tired smile. “But I’m fine.”

He stares at you for a moment, then stands up. “Come on,” he says, grabbing your hand and leading you to the little back room. You feel eyes on the two of you the whole way there.

Once he’s closed the door behind you both, he asks again, “What’s wrong?”

You sigh. “The last two nights have been weird here. I don’t– I don’t know. I’m just worried. I don’t know what happened but I’m not making any tips. No one’s treating me like they used to.”

“Mmm,” Curtis hums thoughtfully. “I think,” he says as he takes two steps closer to you, which in this small space is significant, “everyone else here has figured it out.”

It’s suddenly a little hard to breathe with him standing over you like this. His presence, his attention is always so much. “Figured what out?” you ask, confused.

“That I have lost my patience for watching other men touch you.”

It hits you like a freight train. “What?” It comes out in a whisper.

“I’ve let this go on for too long,” he says, his voice is calm, casual. “I don’t want you working here anymore. This is done.”

“I– What? Curtis. What?! I have to work! I have to pay my bills! I don’t understand. I don’t–”

He takes one last step forward. You feel the heat coming off of him. “Shh,” he soothes, cradling your cheek in his hand. “It’ll be alright. I’ll take care of you. I take care of what’s mine.”

You pull your face away, even as the urge to nuzzle into him is so strong. You feel like you’ve missed something, a thousand things. You feel too many steps behind. “Curtis, I’m not– I’m not yours.”

Something comes into his eyes and you’re reminded of him standing over Vinny, covered in blood. His hand travels down from your cheek. He strokes your throat once, and then his hand closes around it. “Look me in the eye,” he growls, “and say that again.”

His hand is firm, snug, but it doesn’t tighten. But you can imagine so easily how it might. You look him in the eye. You open your mouth, ready to say it again. But then– then you see it. In the way he looks at you, the way he’s always looked at you. You feel it in his grip on you, now. You can’t deny it anymore.

Curtis shoves you into his bedroom. You’re panting already. You need his hands on you, right now. You don’t have to ask for it. He gets you to the center of the room and yanks down your skirt, tearing it in the process. You step out of it and take your blouse off, throwing it on top of your skirt. Curtis’s eyes are cataloging your body, the swell of your breasts spilling out of your bra, your soft tummy, thick thighs. His gaze, as always, takes your breath away.

You reach out for Curtis’s shirt, but he grabs your hands. “I want you on your knees,” he growls and you immediately kneel for him. He throws off his shirt, revealing the expanse of his chest, the muted blacks and grays of his tattoos. You’re desperate to run your hands over them, trace the art, but instead, they just twitch at your side. He'll tell you what you're allowed to do.

He begins unbuttoning his jeans and your mouth drops open. He chuckles darkly. “Perfect little slut.” He takes his phone out of his back pocket and aims it at you, taking a picture as you gaze up at him under your lashes, your mouth wide open. “I've been dreaming of getting you on your knees for me.” He puts his phone on his dresser, then continues taking off his pants. “You ready to choke on my cock, baby?”

“Please,” you whine. You're practically salivating now. His bare thighs are as thick as tree trunks, the muscles corded. His abs ripple as he moves. His shoulders, his back. You want.

He frees his cock and rolls his black boxer briefs down his legs, stepping out of them. It's long and thick, just like the rest of him. Your breath catches. You don't think you've ever taken something that big before.

He takes a few steps so he's completely in your space, his cock bobbing right in front of your face. He takes it in one hand, the other firmly on the back of your head and slowly feeds the tip into your mouth. You taste his musk on your tongue. As he rocks into your mouth, going a little further each time, your hands come up to grasp his thighs. On his next thrust in, you run your tongue along the underside of his dick. His movements stutter just a little and then he looks down at you, a smirk overtaking his face. It's just a touch mean, in a way that has you soaking your panties. “You ready?” he asks, his voice rough. And then without waiting for the answer, he thrusts in all the way, making you take him deep in your throat.

You flail, slapping his thigh as you try to swallow around him, breathing frantically through your nose. After holding you there for a moment, he sets a brutal but steady pace. It takes you a moment, but you find your rhythm, your panic subsiding. Once you feel steady, you lift one hand from his thighs and bring it up to cradle his balls. “Fuck, Bambi,” he grinds out. “You're gonna– I– fuck!” His hand moves from the back of your head down to the back of your neck, which he grips firmly, pulling you off his cock. As you cough and splutter on the floor, he growls, “The first time you make me come is gonna be inside that perfect cunt.”

He helps you stand on wobbly legs, then shoves his hand between your legs, cupping your pussy over your panties. “Shit, fucking soaked just from deepthroating me?”

You let out a needy little whine, trying to push further into his hand, but he withdraws it, instead settling on your hip. “Well,” he grins, “if they’re ruined anyway…” then uses that hand to rip the black lace down the side, letting them fall to the floor. He makes quick work of your bra as well, then takes a step back and sighs, “Shit, Bambi, look at you.” It’s the reverence in his voice and on his face that has you launching yourself at him, unable to keep from kissing him any longer. He lets you, quickly taking control, letting you feel all his hunger, the want he’s kept barely bottled up since he first laid eyes on you. You understand it all now. His erection brushes against you, and now it’s his turn to whine, just a little.

He pulls away, brushing a hand down your cheek, then says “Get on the bed, on your stomach.” You quickly comply, laying in the center of the bed with your knees pulled up and spread beneath you. He brings his hand down on one asscheek harshly and you can’t help the lewd moan that escapes you. He chuckles, “Oh, I will definitely remember that for later.” He grabs your hips and cants them up, then whistles at your exposed cunt. “I knew it. Absolutely beautiful.” Then he unceremoniously shoves two fingers into your hole and you choke on nothing. “Shh,” he coos. “You can take it. My cock’s gonna be a lot thicker.”

As he starts scissoring his fingers inside you, you can’t hold it in any longer and start babbling. Mostly a combination of “please,” and “Curtis,” and “I need,” over and over.

“I know, baby,” he says as he pulls his fingers out of you. “I’ve got what you need right here.” You have a brief moment to feel the tip of his cock on your pussy lips before he’s thrusting it into you, as far as he can go without making it hurt.

“Oh my god,” you cry, pressing your forehead into the mattress and balling his dark blue sheets in your hands. You feel so full. It’s so good. He’s working himself into you as quickly as he can, desperate now. You both are. Once he bottoms out, fully seated in you, he pauses. Then with one hand on your stomach and the other around your neck, he pulls you up onto your knees, your back flush to his chest. You cry out at the new angle; he’s somehow even deeper now. He starts thrusting up into you at a punishing pace. You’re bouncing up and down in his firm grasp. The hand on your neck turns your head to face him, his lips brushing against yours. He holds eye contact with you as the hand on your stomach snakes down your pelvis so his thick fingers can begin circling your clit. “Fuck! Curtis, please!” you shout.

“Yeah, come on,” he breathes, “you can let go. You can do it. Come for me like a good girl.” It’s those words that send you careening over the edge, your cunt pulsing around his cock, squeezing him until he’s coming too with a grunt, filling you up until both your cum is leaking out around him.

He holds you there, on your knees, as you both come down, your twin pants all you can hear.

You wake up slowly, the sun shining on you through the soft drapes. You start to shift then groan at how stiff you are. The night before comes back to you. Curtis took you two more times before you both collapsed in satisfied exhaustion. He’s still out like a light beneath you.

You take a moment to look at him. It’s odd to see him so peaceful, so still. There’s nothing of the feral predator he projects to the world. It makes you feel oddly close to him, seeing him like this.

You carefully get up without disturbing him and begin collecting your clothes. You put on your bra, but there’s no saving your panties. Same for your skirt; it’s ripped along the seam. So instead you pick up Curtis’s t-shirt from last night and put it on. It smells like him. You breathe it in shamelessly knowing there’s no one to witness it.

You savor the soreness as you move out of the bedroom. It’s like you can still feel him inside you, how much he wanted you, needed you. It makes you feel a little powerful, having that effect on a man like him.

You make your way into his living room. You didn’t really have a chance to look at his house last night, as determined as he was to get you into the bedroom. If you’d ever thought to picture it, this wouldn’t be far off. It’s all rich blues and greens and grays, leather and dark wood. Masculine. It suits him.

As you’re admiring the room, you hear footsteps behind you and then two big arms are encircling your waist, pulling you into him. “Good morning,” he rasps.

You turn your head to him. “Good morning,” you say with a smile.

“Fuck, Bambi, you’re even hotter in my shirt than you were last night.”

You smirk at him even as your face heats. “Mmm,” you hum. “It’s comfy. You might not get it back.” He nuzzles into your neck as you continue. “I was hoping you might have something I could wear for bottoms, too. You destroyed my skirt.”

His beard roughly drags against your skin as he asks, “Why the hell would I let you wear bottoms?”

You laugh. “Because I have to leave the house, Curtis.”

“No, you don’t,” he says as his hand begins to move between your thighs.

You playfully swat him away, even as you feel yourself getting wet again from his attention. “I have to go home.”

“Why? You’re staying here.” It’s how certain he sounds that has you turning around in his arms.

“What?”

“I don’t like your building. It isn’t safe enough. Now that I finally have you, of course, I’m going to keep you here with me.”

Once again, you feel too many steps behind. You just blink at him, confused. How does he even know where you live??

He takes your chin in his hand, his fingers gentle. “I told you, Bambi, I take care of what’s mine.”

Tag list

@stargazingfangirl18 @yenzys-lucky-charm @thezombieprostitute @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory @bval-1 @km-ffluv @texmexdarling @ladyvenera @roxyfan14-blog @darkserenity24 @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @ronearoundblindly @brandycranby @midnightramyeoncravings

#curtis everett x reader #curtis everett #soft!dark curtis everett #curtis everett x you #curtis everett x female reader #snowpiercer #andy barber #mob au #reader insert #curtis everett smut #chris evans fanfiction #ce characters #fanfiction #luck be a lady #kris wrote something

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sunnebeam · 1 year ago

Text

"i always get the job done."

A 'PERKS OF BEING A HOUSEHUSBAND' DRABBLE.

pairing: min yoongi x reader

plot: the (mis)adventures of retired gangster min yoongi as he leaves behind the life of the mafia and navigates the way of the househusband.

warnings: the way of the househusband au, marriage au, crack, domesticity, yoongi being unironically romantic

masterlist + disclaimers.

note: tysm for all the love in the first drabble! here's more of househubby!yoongi & his badass wife,, as always, lemme know ur thoughts :>

You're stepping off the bus, having clocked out of work earlier than usual, when you see your husband strolling along the sidewalk with his signature apron on and a mesh tote bag on his shoulder.

"Yoonie!" you call out to him.

Your heels clack against the pavement as you run towards him. The bits of impact hurt your soles but you forget all about the pain when Yoongi kisses you on the forehead as soon as you reach him.

"You're early," he remarks, grabbing your hand and placing it on his bicep before walking the two of you to the direction he was going.

"Boss let us leave early," you explain, oblivious to the looks that other passersby are giving you and your husband.

("Is he a gangster?"

"He looks so scary!"

"What is he doing with that woman?"

"Is he kidnapping her?!")

It's when Yoongi leads you to a secluded alley that you realize you're not heading towards your home.

"Uh, Yoonie? Where are we going?"

Your husband smiles radically.

"You'll see."

He leads you through a bunch of twists and corners before finally arriving at an equally secluded shop. The dim lighting does nothing to deter him as he opens the squeaky door and leads you both inside.

"Ah, Yoongi," a deep rumble echoes as soon as you walk in. "You're back."

"Of course," your husband responds. "I did everything you told me to do."

Huh?

"Did you, now?" the voice taunts, and you can finally match a face to the voice when he steps into the light. "Are you sure you did everything?"

"I always get the job done. You know me, Seokjin."

The job?

The man called Seokjin sneers before nodding and heading to his shop's backroom, leaving you and your husband alone.

"Yoonie?" you call his name. "What's going on?"

"A gamble, darling," he tells you. "I'm making a gamble."

Your eyes widen. "What?! Are you—"

"Yoongi, are you ready?"

Seokjin emerges from the backroom with a big cork board in tow. The board is brightly decorated, divided into three sections each showing different...

"...prizes?" you think out loud. "Yoonie, what is all this?"

"A stamp scavenger hunt, darling," your husband explains in a no-nonsense tone as Seokjin hands him a dart. "I've collected ten stamps from ten different stores like Seokjin told me to."

Oh. Oh.

"Why didn't you just say so?" you laugh, nerves vanishing as you take a good look at the cork board. "Well, what's the prize?"

"Third place gets a cute plushie," Seokjin gives you the rundown. "Second place gets a self-cleaning robot vaccuum—"

("That's what I was hoping to get.")

"—and first place gets an all-expense paid trip for two to Jeju."

("Yoonie, forget the vaccuum. Get this!")

And so the gamble begins.

The three of you wait with bated breaths as Yoongi positions himself. His eyes are closed and he blows air on the blunt end of the dart as if it'll help. Opening his eyes, he takes a deep breath, swings his arm back lightly, then throws the dart.

It lands on third place.

"Oooooh! It looks so cute!" you squeal, taking the cute plushie from Seokjin and hugging it to your chest. "It looks like Holly!"

Your happy giggles flood the shop.

"Well, Yoongi," Seokjin tuts. "Sorry but..." He smirks. "Looks like you lost."

Your husband looks at you nuzzling the plushie in delight.

"You fool," Yoongi says, "haven't you realized by now?" Now he's the one smirking. "The true prize is seeing my beautiful wife's smile—"

"Yoonie! Stop embarrassing me!"

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detailtilted · 8 months ago

Text

Comic-Con 2008 - Enhanced Edition of Supernatural Panel

youtube

Direct link. Warning: Some of the special content I added has big spoilers for season 4 beyond the original videos.

This video features Jared, Jensen, Eric Kripke, Sera Gamble, and Ben Edlund. If you've already seen the original videos and you're wondering why you'd want to watch this, see the details about the enhancements below. For other enhanced videos, check my YouTube channel or my Tumblr index post.

Video Improvements - Upscaled, fixed bad aspect ratios, improved colors

I received a great deal of help from @sensitivehandsomeactionman on the color correcting. They gave me tips on how to achieve better colors and they even took a screen shot from my video and corrected the colors on it with their own software to provide me with an example of what was possible. Having that example to reference was invaluable for me, because I'm not good with colors.

Without that help, Jared and Jensen would have looked like they were in training to become the world's tallest Oompa Loompas. Any remaining color wonkiness (Wonka-iness?) is due to my own failure to apply what I was taught and my failure to see the colors properly. But look at that difference! I was pretty excited about this.

Combined Videos to Cover Entire Event

As with my other enhanced videos, I combined multiple videos to create as seamless a video of the event as possible, from beginning to end. For my earlier videos, that meant combining maybe 5 videos. For this one, I used a total of 19 videos from 3 different sources. A lot of those were used for the talking head bubbles, explained further below.

None of the videos are my own. My video description on YouTube has links to the original videos I used.

Good, Color-Coded Subtitles

As with my other enhanced videos, I attempted to provide accurate and as-complete-as-possible subtitles. They're color-coded to make it easier to tell who's speaking. This is especially helpful when people are speaking at the same time, or when the speaker is off camera.

Since there were so very many people talking in this video, I doubled up on a couple colors if I thought I could do so without it being too confusing. Here's the complete color key:

Red = Jared Blue = Jensen Brown = Eric Kripke Pink = Sera Gamble Purple = Ben Edlund Green = General audience Yellow = The person asking the questions. In the first half this is the moderator, Alynda Wheat. In the second half, this is the fan at the mic. White = Mostly the publicist (Holly Ollis), but a couple times it's used for people off camera who I believe were Comic-Con staff. Two shades of orange = surprise guests

Additional Clarifying Content

As with my other enhanced videos, I've added some images to help add clarity to the references used by the speakers. I added images of characters and scenes referenced from the show, images to explain various pop culture references, as well as some explanatory text to help add details or clarity when I thought it might be useful.

I mostly kept this extra content to the sides so that, if it doesn't interest you, you can hopefully ignore it and focus on the main part of the video. Unlike my previous videos, sometimes this is on the left side and sometimes it's on the right side. The margins shift depending on where the talking head bubbles are.

Talking Head Bubbles - Jared and Jensen front and center, but other speakers visible too

This "enhancement" isn't anywhere close to perfect, but it sure as heck isn't from a lack of effort. This represented at least half if not two-thirds of the time I spent working on this video.

I always find the Comic-Con videos frustrating to watch. When the camera moves to other people who are talking, I want to see Jared and Jensen instead. I like to see their reactions and sometimes they do funny things that get missed. But when the camera is steadfastly focused on Jared and Jensen, I also get frustrated because I can’t see the people who are talking. Nope, you can’t win with me! I want to see everything.

I attempted to mitigate this frustration by adding talking head bubbles. The main source videos I used were the ones with the most constant and stable focus on Jared and Jensen. However, if one of the other source videos had a decent focus on another guest, I inserted a small window into that other video as seen below. Eric shows up on the left, because that's where he was seated relative to Jared. Sera and Ben show up on the right, because they were on the other side of Jensen.

Like I said, it's not anywhere close to perfect. Trying to make the bubbles look stable was an enormous challenge for me. Behind the scenes the person in the bubble was bobbing and weaving all over the original video frame, so I had to constantly adjust the position of the secondary video to keep the subject centered in the bubble. They also aren't always bubbles. The people taking the videos often had the writers on the edge of the frame because they wanted to capture Jared or Jensen too, so the bubbles start to collapse when they get too close to the edge because there isn't enough video surrounding them to form a circle.

I haven't decided if the end result was worth how much effort I put into these darn "bubbles", so I'd welcome any feedback -- good or bad.

#enhanced edition con video #j2 #jared padalecki #jensen ackles #eric kripke #sera gamble #ben edlund #comic con #comic con 2008 #Youtube

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conflictofthemind · 5 months ago

Note

about your last post - if this is what I think it is about, do you know how much we can trust this source?

He has (like most if not all leakers) been both wrong and right before. I was actually waiting to see if he’d comment on more ST related stuff because I consider him a little more reliable, but that’s my bias because his is the only account that I recognize from being right about something 2 years ago (not related to ST).

You can do easy google searches to see that even within a weekend he was right on the ball one day and then the next almost everything he said was wrong.

And then here in the comments.

Basically just have to use common sense / knowledge to see if you think it lines up with what the show is doing. I didn’t question the title leaks from a couple of months ago because it made so much sense and had specific references to a Wrinkle in Time that a fan or fake couldn’t make up without being super ahead of the game. It also wasn’t easily guessable (nobody theorized Holly would disappear).

To me of course, I think most of these leakers are getting in on the ST5 hype honeypot and trying to ‘leak’ things that they think are obvious to end up confirmed without needing a source. Most people who aren’t into Byler don’t think Byler is happening, and think that is ‘obvious’. It also gets a lot of attention, so it’s a clear topic to make a gamble on.

It’s also… nobody knows what happens in the last two episodes except for the writers, the cast, and top executives. Even for current episodes they are literally forcing people out of the set as soon as their lines are done and giving them heavily redacted scripts that only include their part. Byler isn’t going to be making out in Episode 4 — which is the latest they’ve gotten to up until the last week. And probably won’t in Episode 5. So literally nobody can say.

Anyway I don’t believe him on this one because my eyes, and the (while also somewhat hit or miss) information I get too, don’t deceive me.

#my asks #st5 speculation #st5 leaks #byler #now I need to go the grocery store because it’s almost about to close lol #still not posting context cause ihhh boy this tag is about to get annoying

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aquato-family-circus · 9 months ago

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Hollis headcanons while I'm at it:

She's agnostic but raised christian and still finds comfort in faith which is why her quiet place is a church

also bc I think there was a church at her university she'd study at bc it was typically quiet and empty (source: my uni had a chapel/theater i could just sit in and study when there wasn't somethin goin on)

any friendships she made in medical school have since been strained or fully broken bc they either sided w/dr potts or took a neutral stance, the latter one somehow hurt more

dr potts is still a well respected doctor and ppl still mostly believe the method he stole from hollis is his, which is a wound in her history she'd rather just ignore

hollis did have a gambling problem long before any mental tampering happend, but that was years ago when she was just out of high school and thought she could take on the world just bc she had rich parent money and psychic cheats backing her up. she cleaned up and got help for it when she was getting her first degree

hollis' favorite passtimes include painting, bird watching, and swimming, the latter she plans to do ofc while on her very much earned vacation.

bisexual

she never wants to raise children but cares a lot about the interns

that's all i got off the top of my head

#hcs #cospn2

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technovillain · 1 year ago

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I am always thinking so hard about the choice for church imagery in Hollis' mind and what it means for her character. I would say for sure that her inner-sanctum when trying to solve a crisis being a church would suggest that she is religious or had a religious upbringing.

The pews are full of figments of hospital patients. They are nondescript figures but their presence paired with her area to process is by the pulpit suggests that she sees herself as a sort of guide to others in this time, especially helping the helpless find a sense of salvation.

At the very front of this church rest the main dilemma Hollis faces, and based on her train of thought and general dialogue, it is easy to assume that this is a mental connection that she comes back to often. Risk with Death. The stained glass window behind this tableau depicts a shining sun, beneath which lies a cloud, beneath which lies a fade from blue to pink, not unlike a sunset. It could just be pretty decoration or could be indicative of the idea that just beyond any clouded idea or concept (taking a risk) there lies the possbility of an end (death).

I feel it could be argued either way that she has a positive or negative relationship with religion based on the imagery alone, but I feel it is safest and likely more accurate to simply say that it is a complicated one. We don't know anything about religion in the Psychonauts universe, which is why this choice of imagery was so fascinating to me. We have no clue what the major religions are like, or how psychic abilities would possibly play into religious affiliation or scrutiny. Not making any assumptions on that front, the symbolism of this being Hollis' safe space in her mind says that she, at the very least, sees a church building as a safe location, likely due to events in her past. She would want to come here to be alone with her thoughts, sort of like processing thoughts and seeking help for herself or others through prayer or self-reflection.

But this idea of Risk = Death being at the very center of the church could also imply a type of religious trauma that caused her to experience a form of death anxiety, barring her from knowing what risks are appropriate and therefore taking none to protect herself and others.

Despite all of this, there is another route that could be taken to interpret this symbolism that could go hand-in-hand with religious affiliation or could go unconnected. For many of those who are not religious, a church is still an important space which often reflects two major changes in a person's life: funerals or weddings.

After the hot streak section of the level, we see that the church windows now have hearts on the windows. Hollis is kneeling on the ground, something that would typically be associated with prayer, but she is gambling on the table....the table which could arguably be like a casket at the front of the church.

Another way to look at the stained glass motifs could indicate the first one being like her focusing on the idea of death as an impending inevitability to be avoided at all costs. The church being covered in hearts later on has a notably different vibe. I am reeeaching here but the first one could be more like a funeral and the later one could be more like a wedding, a time in a church that has a notably more carefree vibe than a lot of church services (although this does vary from church to church and denominationally) and Hollis does mention having a husband in one piece of dialogue relating to the socks and sandals....

Who knows! I am doing some stretching and just bringing up some symbolism. Please feel free to bring up more symbolism that you might find or other interpretations!

#inch resting....#hcs #i cannot come to a conclusion on this.#society if there was a li-po document for the pn2 cahracters...society if....#hollis forsythe #.txt

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krash-and-co · 9 months ago

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haven't done this in a while, so here !! l&co as stuff I've heard/said in the past few months, bc I don't remember exact exchanges before then 👍👍

arguably more unhinged for reasons unknown. fate of Gods favorite clown idk

Lucy: I thought Billie Joe Armstrong went to the moon for a long time, honestly.

Lucy: [calling Barnes] there's a stranger at our house. she tried really hard to get in, and--

Lockwood, in the distance: we broke all the stranger danger rules.

Lucy: we broke all the stranger danger rules.

Holly: Lockwood, you have the coolest style.

Lockwood: thanks!

Lucy: what?!? she just tells me I look gay.

Lucy: and homeless.

holly: I want to help disabled kids ride a tricycle. wait, I meant to say horses.

lockwood: you want to help disabled horses ride a tricycle??????

Lucy: I don't have mommy issues I just don't like my mom.

Lucy: you gave me a framed photo for my birthday

Lucy: and within thirty minutes you stepped on it.

Lockwood: but then I bought you a new frame!!!

Lucy: and then I opened it, and it looked like you stepped on it.

Lockwood: well I'm not buying you another one.

skull: ugh, theyre so obsessed with how they look.

lucy, nodding: yeah, they're all "oh I'm so perfect!" preps. they definitely shave their legs.

Lockwood: I need to work on my swearing problem, cuz there are adults around and they don't li-- *drops thermos* ow FUCK

Lockwood: shut the windows. shut the fucking windows, I feel like we're being watched.

Lucy: hahaha, this is fucking terrifying.

Lockwood: here are the knives.

Holly: do you have any baseball bats? I don't want to stab people.

George: no, but we have crutches. we can hit people with them.

Holly, nodding: that's good.

Lockwood: I'm stupid.

Kipps: no you're not- yes you are. I don't know why I said you're not, so I had to correct myself.

holly: if we kill someone, we'll get in.... trouble.

George: shit!! I mean fuck!!! I mean crap!!!

Lucy, hitting him repeatedly: stop CURSING YOU FUCKING-- DANG IT!!!!!

Holly: do you ever get the urge to be randomly violent, like-

[loud clatter as lockwood and kipps beat each other up in the background]

holly: yeah like that.

Kipps, on searching for Bobby: I used to just grab any kid I saw about his height with brown hair, but that caused problems.

Lucy: what's your biggest fear?

Lockwood: what? spiders.

Lucy: no the other one

Lockwood: change.

Lucy: no the-- the other one.

George: what do you WANT FROM HIM-

lucy: you're going to make me have a gambling addiction.

skull, nodding: that's the idea.

George: pff my mom says im special.

Lockwood: im also special! they put me in classes about it.

[Lockwood and George burst out laughing while everyone else stares]

[Lucy and George are punching each other, screaming, and spewing out profanity in sign language]

George: literally nobody even looked up

Lucy: we're at the point where it's normal

George: yeah, haha!

Lucy: haha!

[a moment of heavy breathing and grinning before they begin fucking attacking each other again]

George, to Lucy: ugh im so sore. why do you keep punching me.

[Lucy punches him]

ok last one but this was a hell of a fucking convo and it was so funny everyone just jumped in with random twists 😭😭

[kipps crew, l&co, and flo are all sitting in barnes otherwise empty office]

George: kipps sounds terminally online, but I can't figure out yet if it's the normal kind or if he has. like. a kin list.

Lucy: the two extremes. normal or homestuck.

George: I read all of homestuck but it's okay I'm normal now

skull: im-

lucy: skull YOU'RE terminally online, but like the video gamer kind. kipps sounds like he had a my hero academia phase.

Lockwood: I was friends with someone who would roleplay mha all the time.

George: like pretend to have powers or something?

Lockwood: no, like pretend to be the characters. interact as them.

bobby: I don't roleplay, but I like to imagine I'm a different person with powers sometimes :)

ned: ha, furry.

flo: furry? one of my friends knows a furry who got her tail stolen, and she's in the office right now.

Lockwood: like today??

flo: yeah today. she's there right now.

Lockwood: [silence] oh.

flo: yeah they just. yoink.

[silence]

bobby: .....im not a furry but--

Lucy: aaaand gonna stop you right there before you make things worse for yourself

kat: why can't we EVER have normal conversations

#pov the most insane person you know has friends and theyre just as bad #bonus points if you can guess who was me bc a lot of these things i said some of lol #lockwood and co #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #holly munro #quill kipps #george cubbins #george karim #bobby vernon #ned shaw #kat godwin #flo bones #montagu barnes #lockwood & co #incorrect quotes #sort of lol

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moldymeat · 3 months ago

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Some thoughts I had while playing Psychonauts 2 for the first time that I wanted to write down somewhere because I cant just keep info dumping to my dad. :]

Spoilers, duh

TL;DR this is my new favorite video game :D

I cringed so much through the whole process of turning Hollis into a gambling addict, I know Raz is just a kid and that they make up afterwards, but its so hard for me to play a video game and the character you play as does something I'd never do.

the music that plays in Hollis' Hotstreak reminds me of something from The Incredibles for some reason. Side note, I ADORE both PN1 and PN2's soundtracks and I do listen to them just as background noise. my favorites are all the circus tracks, Meat Circus, Flea Circus, Aquato Family Caravan

Me first hearing the main bad guys name was Maligula at the beginning of the game: "haha, Maligula kinda sounds like Amygdala, the part of the brain that controls emotions, especially fear! I sure love all the punny names in this game! I'm sure this will have nothing to do with this characters lore!"

In my head video games and film are kind of in separate categories, so hearing Jack Black and Elijah Wood, very prolific film actors voicing characters in this seemingly random video game was kinda jarring. I know now that Jack Black is friends with the creators of PN and has acted in other double fine games, buts its still kinda weird to me. (I still liked them tho)

In the Psi-Kings Sensorium, Helmut says "My Bobby" about Bob and my immediate thought was "something a little fruitys going on here" and then later on they show Bob and Helmuts marriage and stuff and I was like "oh something a LOT fruitys going on here". I think I was just so prepared for any kind of relationship for Bob and Helmut to have to be only subtext that I forgot this game came out in 2021 and they could show gay if they wanted to.

Psi pops are definitely sour grape and green apple flavored and dream fluffs are little condensed balls of cotton candy.

In hindsight, Gristol was totally trying to mail his own body to himself for safe keeping, but also he was the only mail worker so how did he think the package was going to get him? he didn't know he was going to get an intern and its not like he could walk down to the mail room as Truman without blowing his cover. My mans did NOT think this through.

The conversation Raz has with Dion is really sad and stuff, but when you're idling around Dion one of the things he says is "look at me and my psychic goggles!" and I literally laughed out loud when I heard that.

"Hey why do all these lice have little signs lol" "Lucy those were peaceful protesters!" "OH, UH OH."

I really loved Comptons Cookoff! it was way different from all the other regular old platformer levels, and I'm a sucker for timed cooking games. I only wish that you could replay the actual game show part in the collective unconscious.

In Cassie's Collection there are all the little paper fairy tale characters right? Well two of them, Shakespeare and a dragon, are played by the same actors who played Snorpy and Chandlo in bugsnax, so hearing the paper characters talk I was like "hey, I know those guys!"

Its a little pet peeve of mine when a character in any media is supposed to come from a specific country and they don't have that country's accent. Obviously Grulovia isn't a real place, but Nona has a nondescript eastern European accent, so why wouldn't the other Grulovian characters? I guess Augustus could have trained it out of himself or something, but Gristol? As much as I like Elijah Wood as Gristol, he's the gzesarevich and loves his country! there's no way he would train himself out of the grulovian accent. I've heard some other people say Gruman has an accent when Maligula was released but eh, I don't hear it all that much.

While finishing the game I (only!) shed a tear three times, once when Maligula was holding Marona's dead body, once when Raz got his junior Psychonaut badge, and once when the credits starting rolling.

i think Cosmic I and Welcome to my Mind are going to be stuck in my head for weeks.

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #brain vomit #long post #thoughts and stuff

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astralfandoms · 6 months ago

Note

GIVE ME THE HCS I WANNA HEAR EVERYTHANGG

okay so

*cracks open google doc*

i'll just go through the areas because my brain formats better talking about the different cogs like that

also i'm not going to include the factory managers, the satellite investors, C.O.O, or Chairman because i have yet to develop their full mental image in my brain (but it will eventually happen asdfiopj)

also this is going to be long as hell so warning you

Toontown Central

Derrick Man (William Boar)

Transmasc Bisexual (He/Oil/Drum)

Autistic

Grew up in a family that was extremely focused on how they looked to the public, and was "match-made" with Misty at an early age, but they ended up just seeing each other as annoying siblings. Both sees Misty as an annoyance and as a friend, but doesn't like to admit that second part, especially to Misty herself.

Is crushing hard on both Alton and Rain and is being tsundere about it

Duck Shuffler (Buck Ruffler, Card Shark, Blackjack)

Transmasc Demiromantic Homosexual (He/They/Quack/Slot/Luck/Seven/7/🦆/🎰/⚙️/🍒 [Buck], They/It [Card Shark], It/Its [Blackjack])

Bipolar, DID (Buck [Host], Card Shark [Emotion Dampener], Blackjack [Nonverbal Trauma Holder])

Grew up in Toontown Central surrounded by Toons and later moved into Suitopia as an adult, working as a day trader and gambling on the weekends to help relax. At a casino night, Chris spotted him and offered him a position at C.O.G.S under him. And Buck accepted mostly because he realized he had nothing to lose if he applied.

Dating Dave and has a crush on Brian as well as Eerie Descent

Prethinker (Brian Wiseman)

He/It/Study/Thought/Brain/King/♟️/🧠/📖/💭

Trans Gay

Paranoid Personality Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder

Grew up in a family where his parents were usually not home a lot of time and thought that if he got to the top of his class and graduated with honors, then his parents would actually acknowledge him. But that...never happened. So, after college, he drifted around, not knowing what to do before he applied to C.O.G.S in desperation, so ended up overcompensating to make sure that his place in the company was secured leading to...a lot of mess ups. Also transitioned after entering college, renaming himself, but doesn't like mentioning his last name because he's embarrassed that he picked that for himself.

Is dating Benjamin and is crushing heavily on Mac and Buck

Barnacle Boatyard

Land Acquisition Architect (Alton S. Crow)

Cis Bisexual (He/They/Hazard)

Anxiety, Paranoid Personality Disorder

Country boys make do. That's like. Pretty much it. Grew up in a large family, had to start working at a young age to help support the family, and now has trouble knowing when to stop working.

Crushing on William real bad due to them being hired around the same time

Deep Diver (Mary Anna)

Intersex Bigender Bisexual

He/She/Ocean/Wave/Dive/Sea/Marine/🌊/🪸/🤿/🛟/⚓/🪝

Autistic

Grew up with two moms who encouraged his love of marine life, to the point of her deciding that was going to be oceans career. Immediately was rivals with Holly due to both of them thinking they knew more about the others' specialty.

Dating Misty and keeps denying waves crush on Holly

Rainmaker (Misty Monsoon)

Trans Lesbian (She/Rain/Cloud/Storm/Fog/☔/☁️/🌧️/⛈️/🌦️)

Depression, Anxiety, Autism

Similarly to William, grew up in a family focused on how they look in the public eye, and became hyper attached to William because he was the first person who ever treated her nicely and was the one who she first told that she was trans and a lesbian to. Is hurt about the fact that he won't really talk to her anymore but thinks that it's because they're working in opposing departments.

Is dating Mary and Holly and wishes that the two would just get admit that they like each other already

Ye Ol' Toontown Time

Public Relations Representative (Winston Byrd)

Genderfluid Biromantic Homosexual (All Pronouns)

Anxiety, Autism, PTSD, Depression, Paranoid Personality Disorder

Was a close friend of Tawney's before everything went down. Was eventually snuck out of the dungeons by a blue and white cat toon before getting smuggled to Daffodil Gardens where he got restored to his previous state.

Currently isn't seeing anyone but is yearning to have a partner again

Gatekeeper (Holly Grayelle)

Holypaladin (Xenogender) Bisexual Lesbian (She/Holy/Gold/Knight/Shield)

Autism, ADHD

Grew up being told that she was extremely good at being a leader and so holy has it engrained in gold that knight can’t be any position other than a leadership one and so tends to clash with anyone who challenges that view. And/or fall in love with them. Luck of the draw.

Dating Misty and keeps denying knights crush on Mary. Used to have a crush on Prester until shield found out that he was gay.

Witch Hunter (Prester Virgil)

Transmasc Gay (He/Him)

Depression, PTSD

Grew up in an extremely strict, religious house with a doormat of a father and extremely religious mother, which caused him to have a lot of internalized homophobia, even after he transitioned, and takes it out on people who are extremely secure in their sexualities (ex. Diane, Holly). Also has both a fear and affinity for fire due to being shamed growing up as draconic-descended cog.

Dating Cosmo and sorta kinda dating the Satellite Investors. Also Diane's cousin.

Daffodil Gardens

Vice President (Allan Bravecog)

Cis Polyamorous Bisexual (He/Bulb/Radio/Static)

Narcissistic Personality Disorder, PTSD

Grew up having people constantly trying to befriend him because he was extremely good at making connections, so tends to have people who he doesn't trust at arms length but pretends that they're closer. Married his college sweetheart Norman Bravecog (OC) and had Cathal around when they founded C.O.G.S along the other Chief Officers after they graduated college. Dotes on Cathal heavily because Cathal was the only child of theirs that survived through infancy.

Married to Norman and has an on-and-off-again thing with both Craig and Chris.

Bellringer (Benjamin Biggs)

Transmasc Salmacian Bisexual Gay (He/Ring/Bell/🔔/🛎️)

Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Autism

Grew up being praised for his healing ability but shamed for rings need to feed on oil, so has an energy of “I am perfect and if anyone argues that I am going to kill them and then myself”. Oh yeah, Benjamin is a vampire (sorta kinda) due to having vague leech-based programing and needing more oil than the average cog to allow for bells healing ability (has two oil tanks for that very reason).

Dating Brian and is a bit jealous of Mac and Winn (also is low-key crushing on them but shh).

Multislacker (Cathal Ray Toby Bravecog)

Genderapathetic Aroflux Cassexual (He/They/Tech/TV/📺)

Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Autism, ADHD

Grew up extremely coddled by his father for reasons mentioned above and quickly realized that it didn’t matter how hard they worked because everyone would assume that techs work was just tvs fathers, so became very tired and just decided to roll with it.

Has a friends with benefits relationship with High Roller and ends up developing feelings for Chip and Graham.

Mezzo Merryland

Chief Financial Officer (Chris P. Dollair)

Trans Bisexual Man (He/It/Cash/Coin/Bank/💸/💵/💰/🪙)

Paranoid Personality Disorder, OCD

Grew up extremely poor so has a lot of trust issues and money insecurity (will swing from penny pinching to splurging).

Is heavily crushing on Allan and Craig, while hooking up with Craig sometimes.

Mouthpiece (Belle Dama)

Transfemme Bisexual (She/Chatter)

Autistic

Has had a relatively boring life and works to help her husband, who is too disabled to work, and keep them afloat with help from their children. Visits her husband on the weekend but lives in Mezzo Merryland during the weeks. Is confused by her son's taste in men but is very supportive.

Has a husband named Peter and two kids: Tartarus (huh i wonder who that could be /sillly) and Emily (OC), as well as several grandchildren, with her favourite being Cassidy “Cassie” Dama, one of Emily’s children.

Major Player (Dave Brubot)

Melodyboy (Xenogender) Pan (He/Melody/Hymn)

ADHD, Autism

Grew up in a very large, musically inclined family so naturally drifted towards music as his main aspiration. Extremely extroverted and is the one who usually gets his friends to socialize.

Is dating Buck and is trying to encourage Buck to talk with Brian and Eerie.

The Brrgh

Chief Legal Officer (Diane Morsecode)

Cis Bi Lesbian (She/Legal/Law)

ADHD, Autism

Grew up similarly to Prester, but was the "star" child, but because of that, whenever she fails to do something, it hits extremely hard. Is both extremely annoyed at and extremely worried about Prester.

Is currently single, but isn't looking for anyone. As mentioned, is Prester's cousin.

Firestarter (Flint Bonpyre)

He/Fire/Flame/🔥/🧯

Transmasc Gay (He/Fire/Flame/🔥/🧯)

Anxiety, Depression, Scoliosis

Had a pretty normal childhood, growing from a weird girl into a weird boy. Met Graham first in high school and dated pre-transition and then met again in sophmore year in college post-transition and started dating (had a nice laugh about the fact that fate kept bringing them together).

Is dating Graham and used to date Chip in college (but still has lingering feelings about him)

Plutocrat (Cosmo Kuiper)

Cis Bisexual (He/Star/Constellation/Meteor/Planet/🌟/⭐/🌠/✨/💫/🪐)

ADHD, Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Grew up in a mob family and would have stayed only attached to it if C.O.G.S didn’t take over the town that he was the head of, leading to star reluctantly joining C.O.G.S. Took one look at Prester and went "oh i NEED to date that man".

Dating Prester and constellations investors, often showering them in gifts to let them know that meteor loves them.

Acorn Acres

Chief Executive Officer (Craig Edgar Oilcan)

Transmasc Genderfaun (He/It/They [Collective], He/Oil/One/Fore [Craig], It/Its [Justice], Edgar [He/They/Golf])

Narcissistic Personality Disorder, DID (Host: N/A, Headmates: Craig [Persecutor, Protector], Justice [Emotional Funnel], Edgar [Guilt Holder, Trauma Holder])

Grew up in an extremely cut throat family where it was essentially "succeed or get scrapped" which caused his system to form at an extremely young age. Applies that motto to a lot of its life, which is why they turned a blind eye to everything involving Chip.

Is deep in denial about the fact that he cares about Allan and Chris (doesn't want to admit that he's attached) and "rationalizes" it by hooking up with Chris and having a good business relationship with Allan.

Treekiller (Spruce Campbell)

Cis Gay Man (He/Wood/Gnaw/Log/Chop)

ADHD

Grew up in a large, relaxed family who were the types to encourage friends stay for dinner before they headed back home (especially when it came to Chip and his family). Is so worried about Chip, especially with how little he tells him about work nowadays.

Is single.

Chainsaw Consultant (Chip Revvington)

Boyflux (Chip) Agender (Override) Demi Bisexual Gay (Chip) Pan (Override) (He/Rev/Chainsaw/Saw [Chip], It/Its [Override])

Autism, DID (Headmates: Chip [Host], Override [Protector, Persecutor, Prosecutor, Emotional Funnel])

As mentioned in this post, grew up in a very oppressive, strict household that punished him for any sort of autistic behavior, leading towards Override to form to help mask revs autistic traits.

Chip is still not over Flint while Override is head over heels for Cathal, with their difference in romance causing a bit of a struggle in the system.

Drowsy Dreamland

Featherbedder (Tawney C. Esta)

Cis Gay (He/Sleep/Snore/Nap/Rest/Bed/Dream/💭/💤/🛏️)

Cis Gay

Insomnia, Depression

Grew up pretty ordinarily, but got depressed after his husband passed, but is now slowly healing from that.

Had a husband, and has grandchildren as well. Also has a bit of a “are they dating or just good friends” thing going on with Doppel (OC)

Pacesetter (Graham Ness Payser)

Transmasc Genderfast (Xenogender) Gay (He/Speed/Fast)

Transmasc Genderfast Gay

ADHD, Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Literally does not remember his childhood other than the fact that he had dated Flint in highschool. Only remembers his life post-transition, which is pretty ordinary and standard.

Is dating Flint and has a rivalry/crush thing going on with Multislacker.

So there you go!! That took. way too long but I hope you like!! Also if you have any questions please ask 'em!! This is a lot of fun to do :3

#arynn rambles #i am not tagging all of the managers i am so sorry #toontown corporate clash #ttcc #toontown

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etxrnaleclipse · 2 years ago

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Hollie Gamble

Fandom: Fandomless

Occupation: Junior Chef

#hollie gamble || visage #hollie gamble || about #hollie gamble || threads #hollie gamble || starters #hollie gamble || aesthetic #hollie gamble || skills #hollie gamble || answered #hollie gamble || connections #hollie gamble || musings #hollie gamble || ships

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ash-and-books · 1 month ago

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Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb:

From the bestselling author of The Bone Houses and The Drowned Woods comes a thrilling fantasy about three unlikely allies bound together in a deadly, magical competition—perfect for fans of Holly Black and Erin A. Craig.

Every five years, two kingdoms take part in a Wild Hunt. Joining is a bloody risk, and even the most qualified hunters can suffer the deadliest fates. Still, hundreds gamble their lives to participate—all vying for the Hunt’s life-changing prize: a magical wish granted by the Otherking.

BRANWEN possesses a gift no other human has: the ability to see and slay monsters. She’s desperate to cure her mother’s sickness, and the Wild Hunt is her only option.

GWYDION is the least impressive of his magically talented family, but with his ability to control plants and his sleight of hand, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep his cruel older brother from becoming a tyrant.

PRYDERI is prince-born and monster-raised. Deep down, the royal crown doesn’t interest him—all he wants is to know where he belongs.

A trickster, a prince, and a wild huntress—all in pursuit of the Champion’s prize. If they band together against the monstrous creatures within the woods, they have a chance to win. But nothing is guaranteed. After all, all are fair game in love and the Hunt. Set in the same world as The Bone Houses and The Drowned Woods but with a whole new, unforgettable cast of characters—The Wild Huntress will have readers hooked from the very first page.

Review:

Betrayal, a contest for loyalty, and unlikely relationships all come together in this story about a girl who is desperate to find a cure for her mother's sickness, a trickster who will do anything to stop his brother from getting the throne, and a prince who was raised by monsters all participating in a contest to achieve their goals... but at a great cost. Branwen has a special ability, she is able to see monsters and has made it her life's duty to hunt and kill them. All Branwen wants to do is to find a cure for her mother's sickness and the only cure can be found in the Wild Hunt. Gwydion is the least magically gifted of his siblings, having the ability to control plants and use sleight of hand... however he has made it his duty to lie and trick people in order to achieve his goals... and his only goal is to save his people from his tyrant brother and if that means entering into the Wild Hunt by any means possible, he'll do it. Pryderi is a prince who was raised by monsters, he isn't interested in the throne... rather he just wants to find a place where he belongs. All three of these people want the prize from the Wild Hunt but they'll have to work together to get it.... but nothing is fair when there is only one prize. Alliances will be forged and broken, and the path to victory will cost them everything. This was such a fun story, I loved the relationship between the three characters and the soft friendship and romances. The three characters were very distinct and the story itself had a nice pace and flow. I actually loved the ending so much, it wrapped up perfectly and definitely made this book feel like one of those must read fairytales. If you like magic hunts, fairytale-esque stories, and a bit of romance, I would absolutely recommend this book!

Release Date: October 1,2024

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

#book review #bookish #book #the wild huntress

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azspot · 5 months ago

Quote

Professional sports are so easy for men. They do everything for you: they organize your social calendar, tell you how to feel, what to talk about with other men, and you just sit there and watch an hour of gambling commercials for every ten minutes of action. For decades.

holly

#sports

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tinyinvadr · 2 months ago

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New chapter!!!

Psychoborrower 2

Chapter 4

The mental classroom we were in only about a half hour earlier was in complete shambles. It was no wonder we got kicked after Raz made that connection, her mind had clearly become unstable.

“Alright. You know this place better than I do. Lead the way.”

Raz shot himself up into the nearest thought node, and I almost fell off his shoulder. With the amount of close calls I’ve had, we really should’ve looked into installing seatbelts on his coat.

“Could you possibly do that slower?”

“I don’t think it works like that. Lemme see, does this thing…?”

He trailed off, mumbling to himself as he pulled his coat open and felt around in it.

“Yes! Hidden pocket! You should be safe in here!”

Before I could say anything, he suddenly picked me up and plopped me down into the jacket’s inner pocket.

I like pockets. They’re like enclosed little hammocks where I can rest and hide from the world. Of course, I wasn’t about to let Raz know that. He’d be all annoying about how cute it was and insist on keeping me in there all the time.

But it didn’t really matter. He knew me too well and figured it out anyway.

“Heheh… comfy?”

“Shut up.”

He traveled up the thought trail, heading into the opening that he blasted through back in class. On the other side was the interior of an ambulance. A speeding ambulance.

“Agent Forsythe?”

The vehicle jerked left and right, knocking us over. At the front, I heard a familiar and terrified voice.

“Who’s in here?!”

“Lori? It’s Flint! Where are you?”

“At the wheel!”

Raz got up and ran to the front, and we found her seated on the dashboard, desperately trying to steer the ambulance with Telekinesis. He offered her his hand, but she was fully preoccupied with steering.

“Come with us. We need to find your mom.”

“I can’t stop, this thing’s gonna crash!”

Raz grabbed the wheel with his other hand, holding it steady.

“Okay, I’ve got it. Now climb on and let go.”

Lori nodded, climbing onto his hand and finally releasing the steering wheel. With her out of harm’s way, Raz let go of the wheel and made a run for it to the back doors of the ambulance. The doors swung open and the three of us took a tumble onto the street as the ambulance screeched to a halt.

We were met with the sight of a bizarre cross between a hospital and a casino. Everything was illuminated with neon lights, there was a big sign outside displaying a glowing, skeletal Hollis with big wings.

Lori looked around, confused.

“I think I’ve been here before, but I don’t remember it being so… glowy.”

It all made sense. The way Hollis was so eager to go on the casino mission. The way she snuck off to gamble. Raz turned her into a gambling addict.

“What… What Mental Connection did you make that resulted in this??”

“Uh… risk and money?”

Of course. A connection like that was far more powerful than a simple opinion. It was a completely different mentality that defied everything that Hollis believed in. That one connection was enough to rewire her brain, creating a complex network of terrible ideas.

“I don’t get it… where are we?”

I turned my attention back to Lori. How did she not know where we were?

“We’re in your mom’s mind. You know, her mental world? Have you never astral projected before?”

Lori looked away, twiddling her thumbs nervously.

“Oh… I don’t think she’d want me to be in here. How do I leave?”

Raz dug through his bag for a minute, then groaned in frustration.

“I’m out of smelling salts. Sorry. Looks like you’re stuck with us for now.”

Lori thought it over for a second, then shrugged it off.

“Well, okay. I don’t think she’ll be too upset. It was just an accident. I’m not even sure how I got here.”

She was asleep on Hollis’ head in the physical world. When we opened the portal, she had to have somehow astral projected in her sleep. The kid was crazy powerful and she didn’t even know it. I was curious to see what else she was capable of.

I noticed how she suddenly perked up again after putting aside her worries about upsetting Hollis, and turned her attention back to Raz.

“Oh, and thanks for saving me back there! I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Lori!”

“Nice to meet you! I’m Raz.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of you! You’re Lili’s boyfriend!”

“Oh, uh… have people been saying that?”

Geez, this kid’s a mess.

After fighting our way past the Censors guarding the hospital, we got inside. I couldn’t help but notice how anxious Lori looked. She was obviously worried about Hollis, but I also got the sense that something else was wrong.

It didn’t take long for us to find Hollis, but just as I suspected, she wasn’t going to cooperate. She had turned the hospital’s chapel into an exclusive High Roller’s Lounge. We were promptly kicked out, and we weren’t allowed back in unless we had three gazillion dollars.

I was at a loss for ideas on what to do. She’d given us an impossible task. Even if we happened to get lucky and win big, three gazillion wasn’t a real number. That alone was enough to tip me off that the whole place was rigged.

But we didn’t have a choice. There was no way to get to that Mental Connection if Hollis wouldn’t let us in. Which meant we had to play the games and hope for the jackpot.

“Why is she acting like this? Mom’s never been a big gambler. At least, as far as I know.”

Raz sighed. He knew she wasn’t going to take it well.

“She’s not. I messed up. That’s why we’re here. We need to get into the High Roller’s Lounge so I can break the Mental Connection that caused all of this.”

Lori paused for a minute, processing this information. She didn’t look particularly angry, more so just confused.

“Why did you do it?”

“I really wanted to go on the casino mission, but she wouldn’t let any of the interns go. I thought maybe if I changed a few things, it would make her less stressed and open her up to new ideas. It was really wrong, I know that now, and I’ll never do it again. But now we need to fix it. Hollis snuck out of the hotel room to gamble, and you’re asleep on her head right now. If anyone sees you…”

Lori froze, the severity of the situation weighing down on her.

“Right… non-psychics aren’t as nice to people like me.”

While I wasn’t sure how long she’d been openly living at the Motherlobe as Hollis’ daughter, it was clear that she’d gotten used to human interaction. Too used to it. It was like she didn’t have her survival instincts anymore. She was surrounded by people who were nothing but kind to her, and she was devoid of her natural fear of humans.

I envied her, in a way. I’d gotten better about it over the past few days, which is a lot of progress in my case. Still, I had a lingering wariness every time I encountered a new person. I wasn’t afraid for my life anymore, but those “what-if” thoughts of the terrible things that people could do to me if they chose to… those weren’t going away anytime soon.

To see that realization hit Lori the way it did, I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. For her own safety and well-being, it needed to happen, but she was quite possibly the happiest and luckiest borrower alive. She had an entire organization of powerful giants that all loved and protected her. How she ended up in that situation was beyond my understanding, but it was what I wished I had back at camp.

In a way, I did, but I wasn’t aware of that fact until very recently. I spent years paranoid that the people I’d come to love would hate me if they saw what I really was. Lori never had that.

The three of us went quiet as we explored the hospital, and soon, we found our first game. Located in the pharmacy was a large plinko board. Or, in this case, it was called Pillinko, to go with the pharmacy theming. The puns just write themselves, I swear.

Raz set Lori and I down on the counter, figuring there was a good chance we could get hurt while he was getting bumped around in the board. I didn’t mind skipping out on it, though. It would be funnier to watch Raz do it than go through it myself.

It seemed simple enough on the surface. The board was shaped like an anatomical model of Hollis, with her internal organs acting as the slots. To get the winning payout of a gazillion dollars, we just had to get the pill into the stomach slot.

Of course, there was a catch. The game wasn’t just rigged, it was broken. Her heart bumper had fallen out of its slot and was blocking off the opening to the stomach, making it impossible to win.

I unfortunately noticed this too late, as Raz had already gone into the board, and was sent flying out the bottom when he missed his target.

Right as this happened, I heard someone coming. Someone annoying.

“I’m telling you, Morris, there’s something off about that new kid.”

I was not in the mood to deal with Norma, especially not at my regular size, so I shifted and took a seat at a barstool. Lori stared up at me in awe as I picked her up and put her on my shoulder.

“Whoa! How’d you do that?”

“Years of practice.”

Norma and Morris didn’t stick around for long. It was weird. They teased Raz a little, acknowledged my human projection, then disappeared. Wasn’t our problem, though. They shouldn’t have even been in Hollis’ mind if they didn’t intend to help us fix it.

Raz opted to fix the Mental Connections in the pharmacy that were created as a result of his initial connection, and that was enough to fix the game.

Personally, I think it would’ve been quicker to use TK to yank her heart and and shove it back in where it’s supposed to go, but the nurse running the game was horrified by that idea and told me to stay far away from medical school. He’s just mad ‘cause I’m right.

We won our first gazillion, then headed to our next stop: the cardiology ward. This housed another game, in which you bet on one of four racers, each of them representing the suites in a deck of cards. Seated at the bar was the skater girl I recognized from class… and Sam.

“Gisu, I’m telling you, the odds of Hearts winning are a gazillion to one.”

“They’ve gotta win at some point!”

“Oh hey, Flint. Have you gotten taller?”

I couldn’t tell if she was trying to make a joke or if it was a genuine question, but either way I ignored it.

Just like what happened back in the pharmacy, Sam and Gisu suddenly went missing. I was starting to get a very bad feeling about this place.

We tried betting on Hearts, but it was clear on the heart monitor that our racer was in no condition to be running. They lagged behind the other racers, and were clearly exhausted.

Raz went off to the back room to see if he could find a solution, leaving Lori and I at the counter. I noticed she’d gotten quiet, so I gave her a gentle nudge to make sure she was still awake. Is it possible to fall asleep in a mental world? Probably not.

“Hey. Everything okay?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, it’s just… this place is bringing back some memories for me. I know it’s not the same, especially now that it’s a casino, but…”

She trailed off, avoiding my gaze. I was very curious about her history with Hollis, but I wasn’t going to press on it if she wasn’t ready to talk about it.

Before we knew it, Raz came back, advising us to bet on Hearts in the next race. He ran off again, and the next time we saw him, he was on the heart monitor.

The race was close, but he made it in the end, and we won another gazillion dollars. We just needed one more big win to get into the High Roller’s Lounge. Our last stop was the maternity ward.

The main attraction was a big prize wheel, with a bunch of card suits babies attached to it. This definitely violated some sort of child safety law.

“Ugh, what kind of game is this? The prizes are just a bunch of babies!”

“Let’s ditch this place, Lizzie. There’s gotta be a bar around somewhere. I just hope we don’t get carded.”

I kept my eye on Adam and Lizzie. I wanted to see if they’d disappear like the other interns.

Sure enough, they did. And this time, I finally saw the culprit. A giant tentacle swooped in and grabbed them, whisking them away. Just as I was about to tell Raz, I saw him run off again.

The nearby skeletal couple explained that he was going to un-rig the game so they could win a baby. Because they were so rich, they promised to reward him with a gazillion dollars if he succeeded.

“Flint… I don’t like this place. Can we leave?”

Something about the maternity ward was seriously stressing Lori out. But I didn’t want to leave without Raz. Especially not with that tentacle snatching people away.

“It’s okay, Raz should be back in a minute, then we can go.”

Her breaths became quick and heavy. She looked like she was on the verge of panicking.

“Lori? Lori, what’s going on?”

There was a sudden flash of light. It caught me off guard, making me shift back to my borrower form. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that we were still in the maternity ward, but it was no longer a casino. All the mental figures had changed into normal-looking humans, instead of being skeletons, card suites, and medical equipment. This had to be the real hospital that Hollis worked at. Or at the very least, a memory of it.

I’d learned about this before. A Flashback. A traumatic memory that becomes real, simulating the experience of living through it again.

Lori had a thousand yard stare as a borrower couple walked past us. Trailing behind them was a little girl. No, not just any little girl. It was Lori.

“Why are we here? I don’t like this room, the babies are loud when they cry.”

Her father sat her down on the floor in the corner of the room.

“We just need you to sit here for a few minutes. Stay put and don’t wander off on your own, alright?”

“Am I in trouble?”

They didn’t answer her. They left without another word. I could feel the dread welling up in my heart, and I ran after them.

I followed them to the next room, and was able to overhear them whispering to each other.

“It worked. We’d better go, before she looks for us.”

“I hate that we have to do this.”

“I know, but we don’t have a choice. That child will be the death of us if we keep her. Her powers are like a beacon for curious humans. But don’t worry. I don’t think anyone will find her here. The staff will be too preoccupied with all those screaming infants to notice her.”

Not this. Not again. Why did this keep happening? First Loboto, now this? Why were so many parents uncaring and selfish?

Sending their kids off to try and force them to change. Leaving them behind to save themselves. This was way too common for both humans and borrowers. These monsters that couldn’t handle having psychic kids… they never deserved kids to begin with.

I swung at them with a strong PSI-Punch, but my fist phased right through them.

Right. A Flashback is a glorified memory. They weren’t actually present entities in Hollis’ mind. Still, I wanted to imagine I could hurt them.

I returned to the maternity ward, where Lori sat beside her younger self, trying to comfort her. Much like the images of her parents, she couldn’t actually interact with little Lori, so she continued to cry.

I sat down next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at me for a second, then wrapped her arms around me, crying into my shirt. Holding her tight, I shifted to my human form, figuring she could use the extra reassurance.

It was a strange feeling. I had only recently gotten used to allowing humans to hold me in this way for comfort, particularly Sasha and Milla. It was somehow even more unusual to essentially take on their position. To have this scared, vulnerable little person cradled in my hands, it wasn’t something I ever imagined happening. But it felt right. She needed this.

“It’s okay, Lori. You’re not here anymore. You’re with the Psychonauts now, and you’ve got an amazing mom who loves you.”

As if on cue, Hollis entered the memory. She saw little Lori crying on the floor and immediately scooped her up, holding her close.

“Shh… Take it easy, little one. I’ve got you.”

Lori smiled at this part of the memory, and I could tell she was calming down.

“You’re right. It’s over. Now let’s go save my Mom.”

The Flashback ended right around the same time that Raz returned from fixing the game. We left the maternity ward with our final gazillion dollars, and headed for the High Roller’s Lounge. As we walked, he noticed how I was still holding Lori in a makeshift hug.

“Did I miss something?”

I wasn’t sure if I should answer or not, but Lori did it for me.

“Yeah, but we don’t need to talk about it right now. I’d rather live in the present.”

Raz nodded. “That’s good. I’ve decided I’m going to destroy the rich.”

I… You know what? Sure. Go for it, Raz.

#giant/tiny #g/t #giant tiny #g/t writing #psychonauts

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